OPTIX - Optical Technologies for the Identification of Explosives

Project Description

Indra leads the OPTIX project that is promoted by the European Union as part of the 7th R&D Framework Programme, which has the objective of developing new methods for detecting explosives at a distance. With a €3.3M budget, the programme will develop a system capable of identifying explosive traces from a distance of 20 metres and determining the type of explosive in question. The prototype will be operational around mid 2011, and testing will last through the beginning of 2012.

Its immediate application will be to provide Security Bodies and Forces with a reliable method of identifying explosives. As a result, they will be able to identify, assuming minimal personal risk, whether a suspicious vehicle or object contains explosives, or if it´s a false alarm.

The solution will be mobile and use a multi-purpose high energy laser on the suspicious material or object, exciting the substance and identifying its chemical pattern.

The project is based on the existence of explosive residue produced by their handling. In reality, it´s virtually impossible to handle explosives and transport them without leaving a trace: small amounts that adhere to the surface of the objects that transport them, then hands of the people who handle them and whatever they touch. Completely eliminating these traces to the millionth part of a gram is very difficult.

In order to identify the chemical pattern with maximum precision, the system combines three different techniques: LIBS spectroscopy, which identifies the elemental breakage signal (atoms) generated after excitement from a high energy laser (“spark”); Raman spectroscopy, which measures the variations in the vibration statuses of sample molecules that have been excited with a laser, making it possible to unequivocally identify their molecular structure; and Infrared Absorption spectroscopy, which characterises samples according to the absorption of radiation throughout certain infrared spectrum ranges.

OPTIX has been the only Spanish technological development project in the field of Security to have been selected by the European Union as part of the 2007 announcement for the 7th R&D Framework Programme, in which approximately 45 proposals were approved (out of more than 320 submitted). Indra´s proposal earned the highest rating among its competitors in the field of explosive detection.

The consortium, led by Indra, is comprised by an appropriate array of industrial and academic partners. The company works with in collaboration with the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI); the SMEs Ekspla (Lithuania) and Avantes (Holland); the technical universities Clausthal and Dortmund (Germany), of Vienna (Austria), and the University of Málaga (Spain). It also works with the Guardia Civil´s TEDAX unit (Spanish Police, Explosives Disposal Unit, Valdemoro, Madrid) as a first level user and institutional partner.

To guarantee the programme´s success, an effort has been made to actively involve end users, European forces and security bodies specialised in detecting and neutralising explosive artefacts.

Examples of this participation are sessions organised with experts from the Guardia Civil (Spain National Police), Mossos de D´ Esquadra (Catalan Police), Ertzaintza (Basque Police), as well as Police Forces from Romania, Poland and Italy to show them the technologies that have been developed and their possibilities. The aim of these is to understand their opinions and needs in order to guide the system´s final application. After the prototype is developed, it will be examined and tested by these forces in order to verify that it fulfils their operational needs and to guarantee the OPTIX project´s effectiveness.

FOUR YEARS OF RESEARCH
Five years ago, Indra created a research group that would work on developing new technologies for explosives detection. The aim was to provide security forces with technological solutions with which to address the increased number of terrorist attacks in which improvised explosive artefacts were used, which represent 60% of the total.
One of the first technologies that it began to work with was LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy).
To undertake the study, Indra established the DeLIBeS (2006-2007) programme in collaboration with the University of Málaga. This initiative, of which the various phases were co-funded by the Ministry of Defence, the Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía (CTA) and the Ministry of Industry (through the Profit programme), focused on analysing the feasibility of detecting explosive traces from a variety of surfaces at a distance of dozens of metres.
Subsequently, the SEDUCE project (funded by CDTI) was implemented as part of the CENIT programme for short distance detection using LIBS techniques, as well as the Q-LIBS project (part of the Avanza R&D programme) for detecting chemical contamination and toxic products in a chemical war setting or in an industrial environment.
As a continuation of these innovative lines of research, Indra started the LIBRA project, co-funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Avanza R&D), which studies the feasibility of combining LIBS technology with another optical spectroscopy; Raman.

The company´s next step within the OPTIX programme is to combine three different technologies for greater reliability and to offer a tool that addresses the demands and needs of security forces.

Collaborating Companies or Organisations

Indra's Role

Role: Project Coordinator.

• Activities to be carried out: Integrator of technologies developed in a single platform.
• Optical development.

Project coordination.

Universities and Technological Centres

Technologies used

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS):

• Atomic emission spectroscopy. A sample is radiated by a high energy laser, creating a plasma. When the plasma is cooled, the emissions are captured and analysed by the spectrometer.

Raman Spectroscopy:
Molecular spectroscopy. Laser radiation generates an energy transfer that affects molecular vibration states. The light is dispersed with different wavelengths, depending on the material´s molecular structure.

PLF-IR Spectroscopy:

• Molecular spectroscopy. After the molecules are fragmented using a high energy pulsed laser, the absorption of the freed NO and NO2 groups is measured to determine the explosive´s nature ratio.

Chemometrics:

• New algorithms will be developed for extracting spectral and fusion information from data for the three spectroscopes.

More information

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no FP7-218037